The problem I see for the TMO, moving into the future, is that it's an
organization in which NO ONE inspires confidence.
You would *have* to be an existing,
pre-programmed-as-the-result-of-decades-of-propaganda True Believer to find
*any* of the leaders or "celebrity spokespersons" of the TM movement in any way
charismatic or confidence-inspiring. Show photos of them to anyone under 30,
straight off the street, and they'd laugh at you for considering them worthy of
attention, much less worthy of being "followed" in a spiritual context. Young,
dynamic people don't "follow" people who look like this:
From: "Xenophaneros Anartaxius anartax...@yahoo.com [FairfieldLife]"
<FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com>
To: "FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com" <FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Monday, April 13, 2015 10:29 PM
Subject: Re: [FairfieldLife] ~~~~~~~~~~ about TMO friendship ~~~~~~~~~~~
I was talking to a well-placed governor a few years ago, and the concern he
expressed was in the old days, people just wanted to hang out around Maharishi,
but now of course that is impossible, and people have a different attitude
toward both learning and going on courses because the draw of an alleged
'master' is nowhere in sight. Also even getting existing practitioners on
courses needs some new impetus because it has to be practical, convenient and
affordable for them to go on courses. A lot of facilities have been shut down,
and renting places can be expensive locally. For example, opening a TM center
these days requires it face a certain direction, and finding real estate that
meets just this simple requirement is rather difficult. Also as far as
knowledge, there is nothing really new in the offerings, though there seem to
be some techniques His Appointed Royalness Tony is giving out to long time
teachers on special courses. There are these 'Experience of Self' courses at
MUM, but everybody experiences this every day anyway, even if they do not
realise it. It is basically the same old thing with new dressing. TM's real
problem is it is heavily invested in beginning a spiritual trek, but does not
have the chops to effectively take it to completion which is why so many people
drift off to other teachings or give up. I hear it is difficult getting new
teachers because M is not there, they are very concerned about it as a career,
how they will support themselves etc., the enthusiasm about being around M is
not the driving factor any more, so a realistic business model as a profession
looms in people's mind now.
Basically any spiritual philosophy has certain ideas that are discussed and
certain techniques that are practised and over time something happens or does
not. Standing out from the crowd with this kind of thing seems to be getting
more difficult as more or less generic versions of techniques are proffered in
the marketplace. The main problem as I see it is the TM organisation is boxed
in with a set of specific beliefs and guidelines that actively prevent them
from looking at more possibilities. The tithing/donation model which works for
religions who have been able to brainwash their flock is more difficult for TM
because it has to pretend it has no religious associations, but the DLF is
basically working on this model, and just how that will pan out when he goes is
unknown. If TM manages to maintain some respectable amount of initiations,
there will always be a few celebrities that will fall into the net, but whether
the glow around them is enough is another matter. TM has not managed to get
really established as a major brand on its own; so far it seems to have always
depended on some kind of exposure based on the celebrity status of someone,
like Maharishi, Merv Griffin, The Beach Boys, Beatles, etc., which is not a
very stable model, particularly because celebrities' foibles are far more
likely to become public and screw the image being created (recall Mr Collins
recently). Also, as a person practices a technique, over time, the initial
enthusiasm a person has is likely to diminish over time. For example, recently
the Beatles and Clint Eastwood, while they have lent some support to the DLF
projects, they do not appear to be particularly enthusiastic about it.
Celebrities often do this if it does not involve a lot of time and energy if
the project seems reasonable. But these people can't offer what the people
seeking relief from their problems need, they are just window dressing.
From: "TurquoiseBee turquoi...@yahoo.com [FairfieldLife]"
<FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com>
To: "FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com" <FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Monday, April 13, 2015 2:45 PM
Subject: Re: [FairfieldLife] ~~~~~~~~~~ about TMO friendship ~~~~~~~~~~~
Something I think the TMO should be thinking about for the future -- were
the TM movement given to thinking about the real-world (as opposed to fantasy)
future -- is "What are we going to do when the existing pool of celebrity TMers
runs dry? What's that mean for our sales model?"
This pool of celebs WILL, after all, run dry. There aren't going to be any NEW
celebrity TMers.
There is no mechanism for "raising them properly." David Lynch was one of the
last who was "raised" in the ashram model of being taught to revere the guru
from afar, and then finally being offered the opportunity to meet him in
person, even if it cost him a million dollars. So he got to meet Maharishi, got
to get MMY to focus on him, and even got his blessing-from-afar as he went out
and worked to sell his products and fulfill his dreams.
That path clearly *worked* to turn Lynch into a True Believer, and a lifer. But
that path is no longer open to the TMO. There ain't no guru to introduce future
celebrities to. What? You think they're gonna pay big bucks to meet "King
Tony?" Or Bevan? Or Hagelin? Get real.
Maharishi was the "draw." To meet him was why the Beatles and Clint and Merv
and most of the other old-time celebrities allowed Maharishi to use their names
to sell his products. And their names definitely did help to sell his products,
so people in the TMO came to rely on the "celebrity spokesperson model" for
spreading their message, just as Scientology did.
But there ain't no Maharishi these days, and nothing even close. There is
nothing to actually draw a big celebrity in to the cult with. So the pool of
celebrity TMers is gonna dry up. What are they going to do then to market TM?
Any thoughts?
From: "TurquoiseBee turquoi...@yahoo.com [FairfieldLife]"
<FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com>
From: "Michael Jackson mjackso...@yahoo.com [FairfieldLife]"
<FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com
...
The current Movement is being propped up by an aging bizarro movie maker who
parades a bunch of celebrities in front of the world waving their hands and
saying "Look at us! We are famous and rich! We got that way by doing TM! Do TM
and you can be famous and rich too!"
... The Movement has very little traction these days, far too many people see
through the absurdities they proffer. It is on its last legs. I give it another
maybe 7-8 years before it is marginalized enough that you won't much of it
anymore. When Lynch kicks the bucket, the celebrity pitch will run out of
steam, RIP TM Movement, and good riddance.
A good point. The TM movement is being propped up -- financially and in PR
terms -- by a 69-year-old guy who chain-smokes American Spirits and cigars,
drinks a dozen or more cups of coffee a day, and (by his own admission) gets
zero exercise. He's like a heart attack waiting to happen, and my bet is that
not a single person whose livelihood depends on him has given a single thought
to what they're going to do when he finally has one and croaks.
From: "dhamiltony...@yahoo.com [FairfieldLife]"
<FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com>
To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Sunday, April 12, 2015 11:31 PM
Subject: Re: [FairfieldLife] ~~~~~~~~~~ about TMO friendship ~~~~~~~~~~~
“The problems and thesolutions for the TM movement are in the first three
sutras:Friendliness, Compassion, Happiness.” -A friend who is successfulin
life, an old meditator who moved to Fairfield, Iowa in retirementobserves.
..when did the movement change?
Reminisces:More distinctly it changed in 1977 with the coming of the Vedic
Atomre-organization and the wholesale sweeping out of a corporate orderof
national leaders and coordinators then who had used metrics ofnumbers of
initiations to guide the movement up to that point. Fromthen the movement
became sidhis-centric, it overlooking entirely theteaching of TM, it overlooked
the meditators, and the newadministrators adjudicated based much less on merit
and metrics andmuch more by their sense in fealty of a faith and belief in
Maharishiand Maharishi's teaching using a one-way, “never do weentertain
negativity, never do we denounce anyone”. There was achange in the cultural
esprit de corps in teaching of TM from then tobeing more of a faith-based
organization.
>From themoments of the Vedic Atom creation a lot of the most experienced
>andeffective TM teachers were left out with no place to return to 'outin the
>field' within the movement. These were the experienced fieldteachers who
>themselves were still on courses in Europe or just thengoing over to courses
>and not in sync in that free-for-all creationof teams made up of just anyone
>and going out in usurpation.
I wasthere and saw this, eye-witness. It was like witnessing thedecapitation of
the whole officer corps of a standing army then.Chaos ensued out in the field
and autocrats tried to control it fromon top at a distance. It was quite sad to
watch what happened topeople. It was something that happened. Even great
leadership makesmistakes in history.
Yearslater now in TM, scientist CEO's, administrators, with some who
areeffective teachers by character being more in charge the teachingmovement
now is getting back to metrics of performance and evaluationin the teaching of
TM. We may yet wait for the remainingold-guard Plutarchs to get out of the way
and in to their retirementor die, whichever can come first. An alarming message
for changewithin sent by some retrogressive element in this more recently wasin
honors granted in a re-appearance and rehabilitation of theWilsons, Neil
Patterson, Abramson and some others being brought upand placed seated on stage
at the 40th anniversary celebrationof MIU. Is that a movement that people would
come back to, goingforward?
#
..when did the movement change?
Bhairitu writes:
After the AE courses. Some teachers came back and assumed being "TM Gestapo".
Most of them were very mediocre souls probably lifetimes away from attaining
any permanent state of enlightenment. They were rude and mean to other
teachers and made pronouncement as if they had a stick up their butt. That's
when folks started fleeing elsewhere.
..I've been away from the TMO since 1985 but I seem to recall some of them got
drummed out themselves. They never bothered me but I sure heard stories from
people who were their victims. Sometimes what goes around comes around.
#
Are any of them still in charge of anything:?
L
Discussing: “One thing which is interesting hereis that this movement was
founded by people who had a distinct lackof the first list and an abundance of
the second list. To takea year off college and go to a 3-month TM TTC in 1972
required agreat lack of obedience, compliance, conformity, discipline
andadherence; and a great abundance of authenticity,
self-direction,self-expression, appreciation of diversity, critical analysis,
andplayfulness. When did we change?”
..when did the movement change?
As the culture of the movement becameTM-siddhis centric. Back when the metric
changed from numbersof meditators and the teaching of TM over to groups of
people practicingTM-yogic-flying. The friendly, compassionate, and happy
movementbecame something else under a new administrative leadership with a
different mission from then.
Discussing: “Specifically,our community culture highly values: obedience,
compliance,conformity, discipline and adherence. These values go
directlyagainst the grain of: creativity, authenticity,
self-direction,self-expression, appreciation of diversity, critical analysis,
andplayfulness which are generally the characteristics of later stagesof
development.”
..Discussion:I feel this is a very powerful way of analyzing. ..examples ofour
community culture valuing “conformity,” for example?
LEnglish5 wrote :
I think you're wrong all the way across the board in your conclusinos, even if
you make partially valid points.The TM organization appears to be thriving, and
on the verge of being 100x laster than it has ever been, while being recognized
by the largest organizations in the world as being important.
Of course, that last may never happen, but what if does?
L
Yes,granted that in places the TM movement is progressing. Thatevidently
depends though on people and a character of the peopleinvolved how it is going.
In Latin America pretty obviously it ishappening because of the integrity of
the person there leading it.Elsewhere the TM movement is pretty small. They guy
in Latin Am. isway inclusive in language and nature, sort of like the new pope,
and simplyteaching TM. At the level of the Global Country of World Peace
itevidently is way exclusive as a faith-based organization. Their GCWP is avery
small organization actually. It is some numbers of hundreds. Itseems is not out
of the woods yet, post MMY: 'All chiefs and noindians', as the old saying
went.. And certainly no young leaders onthe stage or at the microphones yet at
important functions. TheGlobal Country is about 30 Rajas and some 'Ministers'
like Bevan andNeil holding fast to the movement tiller and microphone. Lot of
the Rajas evidentlybailed in various ways.
A meditator communityobserver here with a valid Dome badge watching their
meetings andvideos comments, 'they should look and see if anyone is following'.
By contrast, I was up at Mayo Cliniclast week. Consistently rated at the top in
healthcare, their contrastin organizational culture of ease, fluidity,
collaboration, graciousness, mission of service, focus and outcome is
spectacular by contrast withthe halting organizational cultural of fears
endemic withinorganizational TM.
anartaxius wrote :I suspect Michael, that Maharishi as a young spiritual
groupie was much like the people who eventually surrounded him, with that
bright naive sense that everything would be grand. And then the reality of the
world, the incapacities of the people, began to set in. Nothing goes the way
you think it will go (though statistically there are always a few people who
are on the lucky end of the curve).
He did acknowledge there would be a flaw that would derail the whole thing. But
there is always more than one way for something to come off the rails, and it
can come from inside oneself just as well as from outside. Creating an
organisation, especially a large one, is one way to bollix up the works because
resources that might have been used to supposedly enlighten people have to be
diverted to support and sustain the organisation.
The organisation then becomes a vampire that sucks its supposed beneficiaries
dry in order to sustain itself. Anyone at the head of such an organisation who
has personal issues or flaws in relation to its stated mission becomes a major
distorting factor in its growth, along with the flaws of all the rest who
become part of it.
Add to that that enlightenment offers nothing in the end except the knowledge
that there was nothing to get in the first place and cuts you loose to live
your life independently means those few who do 'succeed' in getting what this
truly odd business of 'spiritual' growth is about are not usually going to be
enthusiastic about being surrounded by spiritual cretins and their inept dreams
of a utopia.
mjackson74 wrote :Too bad he was a damnable liar.
From: "email4you mikemail4you@... [FairfieldLife]"
<FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com>
To:
Cc:
Sent: Monday, April 6, 2015 5:32 AM
Subject: [FairfieldLife] ~~~~~~~~~~ about friendship ~~~~~~~~~~~ [1 Attachment]
[Attachment(s) from email4you included below]
|
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| I will fill the world with Love,
and create Heaven on Earth.
Maharishi,1959
Jai Guru Dev
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| Stationery, a Yahoo Mail and Paperless Post collaboration |
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